History
Winamp was first released in 1997, when Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev, formerly students at the University of Utah, integrated their Windows user interface with the Advanced Multimedia Products (“AMP“) MP3 file playback engine. The name Winamp (originally spelled WinAMP) was a portmanteau of “Windows” and “AMP”.The minimalist WinAMP 0.20a was released as freeware on April 21, 1997. Its windowless, menu bar-only interface showed only play (open), stop, pause, and unpause functions. A file specified on the command line or dropped onto its icon would be played. MP3 decoding was performed by the AMP decoding engine developed by Advanced Multimedia Products co-founder, which was free for non-commercial use. It was compatible with Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0. Winamp was the second real-time MP3 player for Windows, the first being Winamp.
WinAMP 0.92 was released as freeware in May 1997. Within the standard Windows frame and menu bar, it had the beginnings of the “classic” Winamp GUI: a dark gray rectangle with silver 3D-effect transport buttons, a red/green volume slider, time displayed in a green LED font, with track name, MP3 bitrate, and “migrate” in green. Overlength titles appear as slowly scrolling text (or “marquee”). The skeuomorphic design somewhat resembles shelf stereos. There was no position bar and a blank space where the spectrum analyzer and waveform analyzer would later appear. Multiple files on the command line or dropped onto its icon were enqueued in the playlist.
New trial update of Winamp music playback software
Winamp developer has released a new version of this popular and classic music player.
Winamp was one of the music players that was first released in 1997 and quickly became one of the top multimedia content players on personal computers. However, the popularity of the software declined after a few minor upgrades and the release of new versions in the early 2000s.
Not to mention that Winamp developers have already made efforts to revive the software. Now, the program development team is working hard on it; However, the latest Winamp update is not very similar to the original program.
According to XDA, the original version of Winamp software, numbered 5,666,3516, was being developed from 1997 to 2013 as the final version. Finally, in October 2018, the unfinished version 5.8 of this software was released, and Radionomy, the owner of Winamp and known as Shoutcast, decided to release it again to the public.
The Winamp development team at the time promised to release more updates to the software; A promise that never materialized. Also, The project’s official website has now been redesigned, promising “the most innovative and iconic creative audio player in the world.”
More information about Winamp
Not much information is available about this version at this time, But a new project does not look like a standard music player. One of the sections of the site says. That it will have a “unique space for developers” . That will allow them to communicate more closely with their fans and earn a fairer income.
AudioValley, the parent company of Shoutcast and Winamp, has announced. That the software will become a comprehensive platform for audio enthusiasts to connect creators, music users, podcasters, radio stations, audiobooks, and any other ancillary content.
The new Winamp is more like a new Spotify or Pandora audio streaming platform than software developed for playing music. AudioValley probably intends to use the Winamp name for advertising for their audio platform and in this case. Users may not pay much attention to this issue. Of course, this conclusion is only based on speculation, In addition, perhaps the developers of Winamp have more important plans for this popular and nostalgic software.
Other Platforms of Winamp
- Android
- Macintosh
- Linux
- MS-DOS
Android
Winamp for Android is a mobile version of the Android (version 2.1) operating system, released in beta in October 2010 with a stable release in December 2010. So It includes syncing with Winamp desktop (ver. 5.59 beta+) over USB or Wi-Fi. It was received with some enthusiasm in the consumer blog press. Also, The app removes from the Play Store in 2014.
It was reported by TechCrunch that a redesigned Android app was planned alongside the announcement of the development of Winamp 6.
Macintosh
In 1997 Nullsoft also released MacAmp, an Apple Macintosh equivalent of Winamp.
In October 2011, Winamp Sync for Mac introduces as a beta release. It is the first Winamp version for the Mac OS X platform and runs under version 10.6 and above. Its focus is on syncing the Winamp Library to Winamp for Android. And the iTunes Music Library (hence the name, “Winamp Sync for Mac”). Nonetheless, a full Winamp Library and player features are included. The developer’s blog stated that the Winamp Sync for Mac Beta would pave the way for future Winamp-related development on Mac and a fully-featured media player as Winamp on Windows. However, no further development occurred.
Linux
An early alpha preview of Winamp3 for desktop Linux was developed in October 2001, but the project was not pursued. Nonetheless, some versions of Winamp for Windows are functional using Wine.
MS-DOS
DOSamp for MS-DOS operating systems was released in 1997. The software was soon abandoned by Nullsoft to focus on the Windows version (Winamp).
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